Victory! Corbyn defies establishment again as he increases mandate

As expected Jeremy Corbyn has won the challenge to his Leadership from Owen Smith by a landslide. He won the contest by 61.8% to 38.2% for Owen Smith.

The contest was ultimately ill conceived, even from the outset, and a huge misjudgement on the part of the coup plotters and now the message has been received loud and clear that the membership want Jeremy Corbyn to lead the party to 2020.

The 80% of MP’s who voted ‘No Confidence’ in Jeremy Corbyn now have a decision to make.

They can either publicly accept the vote and silently do their best for the party in the lead up to 2020 and begin to challenge the Tory party or they can choose to at worst split the party or at ‘best’ continue to bring the party into disrepute by speaking out against Corbyn and Labour’s chances in 2020.

It’s a new chapter now and the next 24 hours may mark the next phase of events. For once the people at the top have not got their own way and that’s credit to people power and the leadership that Corbyn is displaying and the hope he is giving to thousands upon thousands and potentially millions of people who have had enough of the same old politics.

Time will tell if the reports of a party- within-a-party in the form of the mooted Co-operative Party will come into play or if a breakaway party is formed, for now though Jeremy Corbyn has defied the expectations of the elite again and that’s important for democracy and Owen Smith will do well to remember this moment as he mulls over his claim that members should be given more say in how Labour Party democracy works, one of his corner stone policies if he had won the leadership contest.

Official figures:

Possible Votes 654,006

Votes Cast 506,438

For Smith 193,229

For Corbyn 313,209

Jeremy Corbyn 61.8% of the vote

Owen Smith 38.2% of the vote

Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader of the Labour Party for the second time in a year with an increase of around 2% of the vote.